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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

Florida (III)exUSS Wampanoag (1867 - 1868)

Wampanoag Class screw frigate:

Laid down, 3 August 1863, by the New York Navy Yard, N.Y.

Launched, 15 December 1864

Commissioned, 17 September 1867, Capt. J. W. A. Nicholson in command.

Assigned as Flag ship for the North Atlantic Fleet, 5 May 1868

Decommissioned, 15 May 1869, at New York Navy Yard renamed Florida

Assigned to Naval Station New London, CT. as receiving and store ship, 5 March 1874

Transferred to New York Navy Yard for disposal in February 1885

Struck from the Naval Register and sold, 27 February 1885 to Edwin LeBars

View along the New York Navy Yard waterfront, probably in the Summer-Fall of 1866. Ships present are (left to right): USS Wampanoag fitting out; a screw gunboat of the Kansas or Cayuga class; USS Madawaska, preparing for trials; USS Susquehanna; USS Idaho, laid up after her unsuccessful trials (across the channel from Wampanoag); two "Double-Ender" side-wheel gunboats; and USS Vermont, in the extreme right background.US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 85970, courtesy of Martin Holbrook, 1977.

Drawing of the controversial screw frigate USS Wampanoag illustrates what was, for her time, the extraordinary amount of hull space devoted to machinery in this high-performance ship. Eight coal-burning fire-tube boilers, four of them with superheaters, are arranged in two boiler rooms; between them are two compound reciprocating engines which turn Wampanoag's four-bladed 19-foot propeller. Drawing from Frank M. Bennett, The Steam Navy of the United States (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1895).

Robert Hurst

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Drawing comparing the machinery installation of USS Wampanoag, USS Tennessee and
USS Trenton. It is marked: "Copy from Roach's April 16th (18)77". The plan emphasizes the savings in weight, space and personnel
represented in the machinery and boilers of Tennessee and Trenton as compared with Wampanoag.
The original drawing is # 107-10-5A in Record Group 19, National Archives.US Naval History and Heritage Command Photo # NH 76383

Robert Hurst

Florida

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Florida at New York Navy Yard after decommissioning, 15 May 1869.US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 76423.

US Navy History and Heritage Command

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Florida in drydock at the New York Navy Yard. The original photo bears the date 1874 on its mat. In March 1874, this ship departed New York to become the receiving and store ship at the New London Naval Station, Connecticut. This view may show her after refitting for that purpose. It is also possible, given the "new" appearance of the ship, that it was actually taken in the winter of 1868, at the time of her trials. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, from the Skerrit Collection, Bethlehem Steel Company Archives.US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 54159.